Kobalt Co-Founder Willard Ahdritz Launches Music & Media Tech Venture Firm

Willard Ahdritz, the co-founder and longtime CEO of Kobalt Music Group, has launched a new music and media technology investment fund, Ahdritz Capital Partners, and named its second big hire: investment partner Isabel Keulen. The news was announced Thursday (Oct. 1).

Keulen was previously CEO of the Stockholm School of Economics’ startup incubator, SSE Business Lab, and its early-stage venture capital fund, SSE Ventures. Based in Sweden, the investment banking and tech venture veteran will work alongside Stephen Langer, who joined Ahdritz Capital earlier this year from Lazard’s Media, Entertainment & Sports group, where he helped build the group’s music M&A practice.

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Over a multi-decade career in the music and fintech industries, including 20 years as Kobalt’s CEO, Ahdritz has managed $1.7 billion in music assets and facilitated $10-$12 billion in creator funds at Kobalt. Since stepping down from his role as chairman of Kobalt following its sale to Primary Wave in July, his goal with Ahdritz Capital has been to help international companies establish themselves in the United States and other key markets by helping with introductions, resources and hands-on support from Ahdritz’s New York headquarters.

“Twice I have been out on the street in New York pitching my own start-up, so I know firsthand how hard it is to land on a new continent and build the operations and network from nothing,” said Ahdritz. “We will be hands-on with founders on the hard questions. To be big globally, you have to be big in the U.S.”

Ahdritz’s $20 million fund has made investments in New Dehli-based distributor Madverse Music Group and superfan music platform Even, in addition to Fever, Soundtrack, un:hurd music and other creator engagement platforms including Telly, Sweet, SCOR and Airspot.

Founded in 2023 by CEO Rohan Nesho Jain, Madverse provides digital distribution services to independent music clients for a monthly fee starting at $19.99, similar to TuneCore and DistroKid. It differs from those competitors in that it uses AI to enhance its publishing, administration, advertising and other services to keep pace with its rapid growth. Madverse has added around 100,000 users over the past 18 months for a total of 200,000 independent artist and label clients across more than 40 countries.

The addition of Keulen will add to Ahdritz Capital’s eye for AI innovators, Ahdritz says. Before SSE, Keulen was a principal at Spintop Ventures backing early-stage technology companies.

“[Ahdritz] has spent 25 years proving that backing creators and founders on fair terms builds real, lasting companies, and he started before Sweden even had a unicorn,” Keulen said in a statement, referring to the business nickname for start-ups with valuations of more than $1 billion. “Today, Stockholm produces more unicorns per capita than any city outside of Silicon Valley, with several of the biggest tied to music and the creator economy.”

Langer, who joined Ahdritz Capital in May, brings a decade of experience in entertainment and media finance, most recently at Lazard. Not only did Lazard serve as the exclusive financial advisor to Primary Wave on its acquisition of Kobalt from Francisco Partners, it was also the exclusive financial advisor to Searchlight Capital on its strategic investment into Chord Music Partners.

“It’s been incredible to work alongside Willard, an innovator in our industry, and build ACP with him the last few months,” Langer said in a statement. “We have a great team in place to support the next wave of music and media technology companies.”